Harvey the Hatchet Chops Mayors Down to Size

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, December 6, 2000

No, Harvey the Hatchet does not want to have breakfast or lunch with me.

He declines politely but firmly. Nothing personal, just that Harvey Rose sees no benefit for himself or the city in sitting down to eat with a newspaper guy and chatting about himself.

"My reports speak for themselves," Harvey tells me.

Too bad. I was hoping that the man who swings his surgical scimitar over the city's $4.5 billion budget would give me some tips.

Is it more fiscally prudent to order two small lemonades or one large? Is 15 percent still a decent tip, or would that paltry amount potentially undermine the city's service economy?

Hey, I just wanted to meet the guy.

THIS MAN HAS TO BE THE BADDEST DUDE IN TOWN. Mayors keep demanding his ouster, but Rose was hired in '71 and his keister remains un-ousted.

Rose popped up in the news again this week, embarrassing the mayor, though God knows Harvey had no intention of doing that.

Rose's office ran up a red flag on a contract involving the city's airport, FOWI (Friends of Willie International).

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Budget analyst Harvey Rose knows the numbers in S.F. City Hall -- but not in his checking account.Chronicle file photo by Liz Hafalia, 1996

Budget analyst Harvey Rose knows the numbers in S.F. City Hall -- but not in his checking account.Chronicle file photo by Liz Hafalia, 1996

Harvey the Hatchet Chops Mayors Down to Size

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A good pal and heavy fund-raiser for Brown was in line for a sa-weet $32 million airport contract. Rose's office urged the city not to approve the deal without a lot more information.

In a very businesslike and professional way, Rose was waving the contract and saying, "You've got to be kidding."

Rose chooses not to discuss his relationship with Willie Brown. For one thing, there is no relationship. For another thing:

"The fact that this (contract) involved the mayor's friend had nothing to do with our report," Rose says, firmly. "We think (the contract) raises serious questions. We attempt to report the facts."

Study, analyze and report, that's all Rose does.

"I don't feel I have any power whatsoever," he says.

But Rose and his 15-person staff function as the city's B.S. detector and fiscal folly filter. The power is in the total objectivity.

HARVEY THE HATCHET IS, quite possibly, two things:

One, he's probably the most (maybe the only) nonpolitical person involved in San Francisco politics. His office's reports are equal-opportunity, nonpartisan heartburn inducers.

Dianne Feinstein "led the charge" (Rose's phrase) to get him back as the city's budget analyst after he left for two years to be state auditor general (he was fired after declining a $15,000 inducement to scrap a report).

Shortly after his return to S.F., Rose produced a report sharply critical of a Feinstein program.

She phoned him, upset. "Harvey, you've changed the report."

"No, but if my facts are wrong, I'll retract."

They weren't. He didn't.

THE OTHER THING HARVEY ROSE MIGHT BE IS SAN FRANCISCO'S MVP -- MOST VALUABLE PLAYER.

Without doing any math, I feel safe in saying he has saved the city literally tons of dollars.

And though Rose is about 5-foot-7 and jogger lean, X-rays show that his honesty-integrity gland is the size of a bowling ball.

He has ticked off six mayors and a legion of supervisors, although the Board of Supes could fire him today with a simple majority vote.

Rose dearly loves the 49ers, has four season tickets ("I pay for them"), yet during Brown's fight to get voter approval of a bond to build a stadium- mall to keep the 49ers in S.F., Rose's reports sometimes flew painfully in the face of Da Mayor's "facts."

Rose lets chips fall where they may, and they fall like dandruff. He is Captain Bringdown, the Bad News Bean Counter.

He bows to only one superior authority -- his wife, Renee.

"I don't have a clue what's in our checking account," Harvey says.

TYPICAL SCENARIO: Mayor makes a proposal. Rose's office analyzes it, raises serious questions. Then the headline, this one from The Chronicle in '96: "Brown Seeks Ouster of Watchdog."

In that story, Brown, steamed at a Rose report, expressed the notion that the city might be wasting money on Rose's contract. Ah, the irony.

HE WEARS DOCKERS, sneakers and a sweater around the office.

The Hatchet was born in Nutley, N.J., and went to Rutgers and the U. of Miami. He was working in Los Angeles when San Francisco hired him as the city's first budget analyst.

Rose lives in the Sunset and once issued a report recommending that the city shut down his neighborhood's police precinct. His wife raised an eyebrow over that one. And two days later, Harvey got a parking ticket for not curbing his wheels.

He is 64. "I'm so old I knew Baskin and Robbins when they only had two flavors," Rose says, and he's been using that joke, and similar cornball lines,

since before Ben met Jerry.

Everyone rolls their eyes when Rose reaches back for an old joke, but his three grandchildren think he's a hoot.

He seems full of energy and spunk, but being the city's fiscal pit bull can wear on a man's soul.

"I went to my psychiatrist the other day," he tells me, and I'm thinking, OK, he's finally opening. "I told him nobody listens to me. He said, 'Next!' "